Buttondown vs Resend
Pricing
Buttondown: Free up to 100 subs, from $9/mo
Resend: Free up to 3,000 emails/mo, then from $20/mo
Description
Buttondown: Minimal newsletter tool for people who just want to write in markdown and hit send
Resend: Modern email API that developers actually enjoy using
Pros
- Markdown-based editor, no dragging boxes around
- $9/month for up to 1,000 subscribers is the cheapest paid newsletter tool
- No bloated features: it does newsletters and that is it
- 3,000 free emails/month, enough for most early-stage products
- Clean, simple API that takes minutes to integrate, not hours
- Built by the creator of React Email: the DX is noticeably better than SendGrid or SES
Cons
- Very basic automation: no complex email sequences
- Only 100 subscribers on free tier; Substack and Beehiiv offer more
- Minimal templates: your emails look plain (which some people prefer)
- Younger service: smaller ecosystem and fewer battle-tested edge cases
- No visual email template builder: you design emails in code (React Email)
- Deliverability is good but has not been tested at the same scale as Postmark or SendGrid
Details
Buttondown is the newsletter tool for people who think Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has too many features. Write in markdown, send to your list, done. No drag-and-drop editors, no complex automation flows, no features you will never use.
Built and run solo by Justin Duke. The $9/month starting price is the cheapest in the newsletter space. The tradeoff is obvious: if you want referral programs, A/B testing, or complex automation, you need a different tool. If you just want to write and send a newsletter without the tooling getting in the way, Buttondown is refreshingly simple.
Resend is what happens when someone who hated the existing email APIs built a new one. Created by Zeno Rocha (who also built React Email), it focuses on developer experience above everything else. The API is clean, the docs are clear, and you can have transactional emails working in your app in about 15 minutes.
The free tier of 3,000 emails per month covers most solo founders for months. When you outgrow it, $20/month gets you 50,000 emails. If you value developer experience and clean code over the battle-tested reliability of Postmark or the scale of SendGrid, Resend is the pick.
Verified
